SOURCE: Semon, Kenneth J. “Shakespeare's Tempest: Beyond a Common Joy.” ELH 40, no. 1 (spring 1973): 24-43.

[In the following essay, Semon probes Shakespeare's thematic reconciliation of fantasy and experiential reality in The Tempest.]

Helen Gardner, in her excellent essay on As You Like It, makes an interesting and unexplored comment on the nature of comedy: “This aspect of life, as continually changing and presenting fresh opportunities for happiness and laughter, poetic comedy idealizes and presents to us by means of fantasy. Fantasy is the natural instrument of comedy. …”¹ Throughout the canon Shakespeare experiments with fantasy and with fantastic events, but in the last phase of his career we find his most daring experimentation. The central problem of presenting a fantastic world, a world divorced from “reality” as one normally experiences it, is to reconcile the tension between the fantastic and the verisimilar. In the last plays there are several different solutions to the problem: Gower, in Pericles, continually asserts that the play is an old tale which requires the audience to use their imagination if the play is to succeed; in The Winter's Tale the choric gentlemen in V.ii reflect the audiences' disbelief in the plausibility of the fantastic discoveries and at the same time draw them into the fantasy.² But neither of these solutions is as successful as that in The Tempest.

Throughout the play Prospero takes great delight in the practice of his “Art.” After many years of study he has become an accomplished mage and is now able to order and even control his experience. Unlike a “normal” man Prospero has the unusual ability to control his environment, to act out his will on the external world. For Prospero it seems there is no distinction between the secondary world of magic (i. e., his art) and the primary world of experience. Thus it would seem that Prospero is not subject to the analogous artistic, or more specifically, poetic problem with which Shakespeare must deal: the reconciliation of art and experience. I emphasize “seem” because, in fact, it becomes apparent that both Shakespeare and Prospero ultimately do confront the problem of reconciliation, each within the realm of his respective art.

I

Any work of poetry creates a world within itself, and in the sense that it is not the world of everyday experience, it is a “secondary world.” A secondary world may be either “realistic,” in so much as it maintains a marked resemblance to life in the primary world; or “fantastic,” in so much as it maintains only a limited resemblance to the primary world; or it may be, as most poetic worlds, a mixture of realistic and fantastic elements.³ Regardless of which category we impose upon a secondary world, it is essential that the secondary world, like the way in which we describe the primary world, be consistent within itself. We describe the primary world as a series of inter-related propositions since language is necessarily logical. In order to create a credible secondary world which is consistent within itself, the artist must also base his creation on a series of inter-related propositions, though the propositions need only observe the logical form of the primary world and need not be made of the same substance. Thus, in The Tempest, the first proposition to which all others relate is that Prospero is able to control events and actions within certain limits of his island. It is a given we could not accept in the primary world and Shakespeare does not postulate that control until the second scene of the play. First we see the men aboard a ship in the midst of a storm—not an unlikely occurrence in the primary world—and then we learn that Prospero has made the storm. Thereafter we witness further evidence of Prospero's control.

Just as action takes place in the primary world according to laws which we may determine and describe, so does the first action of The Tempest take place according to the law we describe when we say that Prospero controls the actions on or near his island. The need for clearly stated laws in art is most apparent in fantasy, where, if the writer cannot supply the reader in one way or another with his laws, the reader will not be able to understand the action of the work—nor will he be able to understand the meaning of the work relative to the primary world. In fantasy, individual laws may be nonsensical outside of their immediate context. Prospero's ability to control characters and events is a good example; yet, within the world of the play, our knowledge of Prospero's power is essential to our understanding of the main action. The maker of fantasy presents a series of propositions which may, then, be nonsensical (indeed, this is probably the major difference between fantastic and realistic fiction) but when considered along with other propositions, each related to others in a logical and consistent way, those propositions provide the framework for a successful secondary world.

If Shakespeare's artistic problem is to reconcile the fantastic secondary world with the experiential primary world, Prospero's artistic problem is apparently of a different nature. For Prospero the problem becomes one of how he is going to use his art, that is, his magic—a moral rather than a poetic consideration—since he need not worry about the distinction between secondary and primary worlds because his magic does more than just shape experience, more than just give “airy nothing a local habitation and a name.” Rather it governs experience within certain established limits; and for that reason The Tempest, almost from the beginning, presents us with fantastic events and with a perspective which we do not find in any other play. Since we accept and are aware of the central law, Prospero's magic and the power of that magic, we do not share the response of the characters in the play who are subject to his power. (It is in this subjugation that Prospero is most like Shakespeare.) The characters respond to his manipulation with “wonder,” an allusive term, the usual response to events of a fairy tale. We respond with delight and “wonder” to the ending of Cymbeline (and, no doubt, hilarity) for example, just as we respond to fantastic events in Shakespeare's other comedies.⁴ In the last act of The Winter's Tale the First Gentleman notes the difficulty in defining the particular sense of wonder Leontes and Perdita experience at their first meeting:

A notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one it must needs be.

(WT, V.ii.15-19)⁵

Wonder, in The Tempest, usually means “amazement”; the characters are amazed at the fantastic events caused by Prospero's magic. But wonder also takes on more complex meanings.

II

If the first scene of the play, the storm and “sinking” of Alonso's ship, is ambiguous, Prospero's exposition in the second scene provides the necessary perspective to understand the storm and the events which result from it. Miranda expresses her compassion as she describes the storm and the struggle of the ship:

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
(Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,)
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd!

(I.ii.3-9)

Prospero quickly assured her that “There's no harm done” (l. 15) and that she should feel “no more amazement” (l. 14). Her wonder at the storm is not ambiguous and she is fearful that her father's “art” has been directed toward a destructive end. With his assurance comes the long exposition of his true identity and the story of how he lost his dukedom and along with his small child was placed on a “rotten carcass of a butt” left adrift in the sea. Prospero explains his reason for creating the tempest:

I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

(I.ii.3-9)

His explanation is not altogether clear but it is sufficient. His ultimate purpose is left unarticulated: there is no indication whether he seeks only his title or whether he seeks revenge as well on those who usurped him.

After causing Miranda to sleep, Prospero summons Ariel for a report on the success of the storm. Ariel describes the way in which he “flam'd amazement” and caused all on board to feel a “fever of the mad.” Prospero is pleased with Ariel's performance and we see Miranda's amazement as well as the amazement of those on board the ship is the result of Prospero's power and skill.⁶ There is no need for fear; all is carefully controlled and Prospero seems to be a beneficent magician. Though he causes the storm and stirs the fears of his daughter and Alonso's party, he is careful that no harm is done. His last question to Ariel concerns the safety of those on whom he has practiced, and he is pleased to hear that “not a hair perish'd” (l. 217).

The amazement or fear which casts a momentary shadow over the opening of the play loses its force when Ferdinand meets Miranda. Their encounter sets the dominant tone of the play and presents another definition of wonder. Ariel leads Ferdinand from the bank with a song which seems to Ferdinand to allay both the fury of the storm and his grief over the apparent loss of his father. Miranda sees the prince and thinks that he is one of Prospero's spirits. When Prospero tells her that he is a man she responds: “I might call him / A thing divine; for nothing natural / I ever saw so noble” (ll. 420-22). Like the storm, their meeting has been set up by Prospero and he is delighted to see that it goes as his “soul prompts it.” Ferdinand responds in much the same manner as Miranda. He has heard the strange music and thought it attended “Some god o' th' island” (l. 392). Now he sees Miranda and concludes, “Most sure the goddess / On whom these airs attend!” (ll. 424-25). His fear and grief turn now to wonder:

          … my prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
If you be maid or no?

(ll. 428-30)

Unknowingly Ferdinand puns on Miranda's name and she answers his question, informing him that she is indeed a maid but “No wonder, sir” (l. 430); that is, she assures him she is as mortal as he.

Like Ferdinand, Alonso mourns his loss and though the king has heard no songs to allay his own fear, Gonzalo, the noble counselor, tries to mitigate Alonso's grief:

Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
So have we all, of joy; for our escape
Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
Is common. …
                                                                      but for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions
Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.

(II.i.1-4; 6-9)

Their deliverance is miraculous and even more “rare” is the condition of their clothes which are as fresh as when they first put them on in Africa. But Alonso cannot be comforted even when Francisco maintains that Ferdinand may still be alive. Alonso does not wish to hear of wonders, nor does he wish to hear the sarcastic remarks of Antonio or Sebastian.

Though we do not see Prospero in the course of this scene, we do see evidence of his power. Like Miranda in the previous scene, the king and his company suddenly experience a drowsiness, their eye-lids become “wondrous heavy” and, with the exception of Antonio and Sebastian, they soon are asleep. Antonio, the usurper of his brother's dukedom, counsels Sebastian to dispose of his own brother as Antonio had disposed of Prospero and thus gain the crown of Naples. As they are about to kill Alonso and Gonzalo, however, Ariel sings of their treachery into Gonzalo's ear and thus preserves the king and his counselor. Prospero's will, enacted by Ariel, seems all-powerful.

The wonder which Ferdinand and Miranda experienced in I.ii is parodied by the meeting of Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban in II.ii. Wonder here takes on the meaning of sensation. Miranda first mistakenly thought that Ferdinand was one of Prospero's spirits, his form was so “brave.” Caliban makes a similar mistake about Trinculo, whom he takes to be a spirit, and later about Stephano, whom he takes to be a god. But Prospero is not present to correct Caliban's mistake as he had corrected Miranda's. Afraid of further “torment” for his laziness when he first sees Trinculo, Caliban hides himself. Trinculo is also afraid, though of the storm, and as he searches for a place to hide, he finds Caliban:

What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of, not of the newest Poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now, as I once was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.

(II.ii.24-34)

He wonders at Caliban and thinks of how he could exploit such a creature. Stephano's remarks upon seeing the “four-legged” monster are to the same end: “If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor …” (ll. 69-71). Both Trinculo and Stephano would use Caliban for their personal gain. They would rather sell wonder than experience it. He is a marvel, a sort of side-show Indian, whose “strangeness” would attract a paying crowd in a civilized country.

Caliban, like Miranda, is struck by the “braveness” of Prospero's guests. Though he sees Stephano and Trinculo instead of the young prince, he thinks that they must be marvelous creatures: “These be fine things, an if they be not sprites, That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor” (ll. 117-18). He swears his allegiance to his new-found god and promises to provide Stephano with all he needs:

I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. …
Thou wondrous man.

(ll. 160-61; 164)

Trinculo laughs at Caliban's credulity and finds him “a most ridiculous monster to make a wonder of a poor drunkard!” (ll. 165-66).

In the third act the idea of wonder is stressed again in the dialogue between Ferdinand and Miranda. The prince has been bearing logs and Miranda tells him her name; a name he finds most appropriate:

                                                                                                                        Admir'd Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration! worth
What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have ey'd with best regard, and many a time
Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues
Have I lik'd several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
And put it to the foil: but you, O you
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best!

(III.i.37-48)

Miranda far outshines the women Ferdinand has met at court. Like Perdita in The Winter's Tale her beauty and grace are the natural product of her innate nobility, and her essential qualities inspire wonder in those who are best able to measure those qualities. Caliban sees her only as the object of his lust, while Ferdinand, Alonso, and Gonzalo recognize her true merit. Her response to Ferdinand's praise is modest and direct:

                                                                                                              I do not know
One of my sex; no woman's face remember,
Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen
More than I may call men than you, good friend,
And my dear father: how features are abroad,
I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,
The jewel in my dower, I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you;
Nor can imagination form a shape,
Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle
Something too wildly. …

(ll. 48-58)

Miranda checks herself, perhaps tries to make a joke—she does not really “prattle … too wildly,” but rather makes the point a bit more direct than she thinks she should. Her innocence and sincerity are striking in contrast to the scenes which frame this one. She is a true wonder, and Caliban is but an oddity.

During the banquet scene Sebastian and Antonio swear that they will now believe every traveler's tale they hear:

SEB.
                                                                                                    Now I will believe
That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix' throne; one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.
ANT.
                                                                                          I'll believe both;
And what does else want credit, come to me,
And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travelers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn 'em.

(III.iii.21-27)

Prospero has used his art to create another wonder which quickly vanishes and leaves Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian in a fit of madness to contemplate their “trespass.” Antonio and Sebastian run off to fight “the legions” who possess them, and the rest of the party follows them at Gonzalo's command to “hinder them from what this ecstacy / May now provoke them to” (ll. 108-09).

In Act IV Prospero creates another wonder for the entertainment of Ferdinand and Miranda and in Act V “wonder” becomes a refrain. As the members of the king's party recover their senses Prospero discovers himself, dressed as “the wronged Duke of Milan.” Gonzalo is first to register his perplexed emotions: “All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement / Inhabits here” (V.i. 104-05). Up to and including this point in the play, he and his fellows have been subject to tempests, plots, distraction, and torment. In the present context “wonder and amazement” are understood to have the same meaning they had in the first scene: the things they have been subject to are “strange” and strangely terrifying. But now Gonzalo and Alonso will begin to feel a more pleasant sense of wonder.

Prospero presents his most miraculous wonder as he draws back the curtain to reveal Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess. It is a dramatic moment, for us as well as for the characters Prospero has assembled. Even Sebastian finds it “A most high miracle!” (l. 177). Alonso wonders at the “restoration” of his lost son and at Miranda, whom he takes to be a goddess. Miranda's reaction is also one of amazement:

                                                                                                                        O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in 't!

(ll. 181-84)

Miranda reciprocates the wonder expressed by Sebastian and Alonso. The King is moved to joy and grief at the sight of the noble couple and when Ariel leads in the mariners, whom all have presumed were lost, Alonso observes that “These are not natural events; they strengthen / From strange to stranger” (ll. 227-28):

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod;
And there is in this business more than nature
Was ever conduct of: some oracle
Must rectify our knowledge.

(ll. 242-45)

But Prospero, now probably gloating over his success, assures Alonso that no oracle need be consulted:

                                                                                                    Sir, my liege,
Do not infest your mind with beating on
The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure
Which shall be shortly single, I'll resolve you,
Which to you shall seem probable, of every
These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful,
And think of each thing well.

(ll. 245-51)

Once given an explanation, the proper perspective, Alonso will see that everything may be easily explained.

Since we have been aware of the proper perspective almost from the beginning of the play, the events which shock and amaze Alonso and the rest cannot have the same effect on us. Wonder is the dominant tone and setting of the play, and we are confronted throughout by the amazement of the characters who do not share Prospero's perspective: by Miranda's response to the tempest, by Ferdinand's response to Miranda, by Caliban's response to Stephano and Trinculo, by Miranda's response to the “beauteous creatures” she finds marvelling at her. We never share completely in their wonder; like Prospero we feel “So glad of this as they I cannot be, / Who are surpris'd with all” (III.i.92-93). After the second scene we expect the marvelous because it has been made clear that the events of the island world are subject to Prospero's magic.

III

Prospero can evoke wonder from Alonso and Gonzalo and the rest because he can control their sense of reality. I have already said that our view of the tempest in the first scene is ambiguous. We find a mixture of comic speeches and a sense that the storm is a “natural” one and may prove to have serious consequences for the party aboard the ship. Miranda's concern and Ariel's description enforce the severity of the tempest, though between their speeches Prospero has provided the “correct” perspective: the storm is of his making and no one has been injured.

Ferdinand is the first “victim” of the storm we encounter and after his initial dialogue with Miranda he finds that he is subject to Prospero's will. The success of Prospero's art is manifest in Ferdinand's disorientation:

PROS.
Thy nerves are in their infancy again,
And have no vigour in them.
FER.
                                                                                So they are:
My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,
The wrack of all my friends, nor this man's threats,
To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
Might I but through my prison once a day
Behold this maid: all corners else o' th' earth
Let liberty make use of; space enough
Have I in such a prison.

(I.ii.487-96)

In spite of his condition he is able to recognize that even servitude, as long as he is able to view Miranda, would be acceptable. Yet that is all he can be sure of. He cannot be so sure of his feelings regarding the apparent loss of his father and his friends. Without Miranda he could only view his life as if it were as chaotic as the storm.

Antonio also suffers from the illusions which result from the storm, though he does not know it. Convinced that Ferdinand is dead, he counsels Sebastian to kill Alonso and thus succeed his brother to the throne of Naples, for “'tis as impossible that he's undrown'd / As he that sleeps here swims” (II.i.232-33). Even as Ariel sings of their treachery to wake Gonzalo, Antonio does not share our awareness that Prospero knows of the plot and is able to prevent it.

Because of Prospero's ability to control the events on his island world Caliban's conspiracy is rather comic, though within the context of the history play or tragedy it would be far more frightening:

Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him,
Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his wezand with thy knife.

(III.ii.85-89)

Since Caliban has no power with which to realize his fantasy, neither to effect his plan nor understand its impossibility, he poses no threat.

During the banquet scene, Ariel, who acts out Prospero's will, drives Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian to madness. Alonso is first to speak distractedly:

                                                                                O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
Therefor my son i' th' ooze is bedded; and
I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
And with him there lie mudded.

(III.iii.95-102)

His distraction though only a momentary one from our point of view, is from his point of view, frightfully real. When Prospero asks about the condition of the king and his followers, Ariel's reply lacks the excitement and humor he had expressed earlier as he described the progress of the ship during the tempest. His words indicate that he has not previously seen this particular emotion:

                                                                                                                        The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd sir, ‘The good old lord, Gonzalo’;
His tears runs down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em,
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

(V.i.11-19)

Though Ariel may not be moved to compassion his words are moving. He does not say that Prospero has overstepped his power—Ariel would not perform evil deeds for Sycorax—but the force of his speech falls just short of mild rebuke. Ariel and Gonzalo serve as true measure of Alonso's grief. Whereas the king had dim hopes that his son was alive, the distraction which Prospero has worked upon him forces him to lose all hope.

Prospero sends Ariel to “release” the court party, to bring them forth so that he may “restore” their senses. As the “charm dissolves apace” we see that their sense of reality has been seriously disturbed. Alonso is not convinced that his sanity has returned and when he sees Prospero before him he wonders if it is only another illusion:

                                                                                Whether thou be'st he or no,
Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,
As late I have been, I not know. …

(V.i.111-13)

Gonzalo, though he had not been tormented by madness, echoes his king: “Whether this be / Or be not, I'll not swear” (ll. 122-23). Even after Prospero assures them that he is real and then unveils Miranda and Ferdinand at chess the king is amazed at the sight and uncertain, if only for a moment, that what he sees is not another illusion:

                                                                      If this prove
A vision of the island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.

(ll. 175-77)

But it soon becomes apparent that the visions have ceased and Prospero assures the king that he will resolve all questions, relate his story and return with them to take up his dukedom. His power has enabled him to control their sense of reality, to drive them to madness and to restore their sanity. Ultimately it leads to their wonder; for Ferdinand was dead only in the king's distraction, and when the distraction is ended Alonso regains his son.

IV

Associated with the idea of Prospero's power is the motif of freedom. Ferdinand is not free to marry Miranda until he proves himself by performing the task which Prospero gives him. Alonso and his company are not free to leave the island nor are they free to perceive reality until they have withstood various torments and returned the dukedom to Prospero. Caliban sees Trinculo and Stephano as new masters who can free him from his bondage, and throughout the play Ariel is intent on gaining his freedom.

The desire for freedom is first expressed by Ariel. After describing the services he performed during the tempest, he seems rather distressed to find that Prospero expects more of him. When he mentions his “liberty” Prospero begins what appears to be the monthly ritual of chastisement. The scene is rather amusing and suggests that a playful relationship exists between Prospero and his “brave spirit”:⁷

PROS.
                                                            Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
ARI.
                                                                                                                        No.
PROS.
Thou dost. …
ARI.
                                                                      I do not, sir.
PROS.
Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
ARI.
                              No, sir.
PROS.
                    Thou hast. Where was she born? speak;
                                                                                                                                            tell me.
ARI.
                              Sir, in Argier.
PROS.
                                                                      O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou has been,
Which thou forget'st.

(I.ii.250-52; 256-63)

Though Ariel says he has not forgotten how Prospero rescued him, nor has he forgotten Sycorax, Prospero insists on relating the story once again. We have already seen his fondness for stories at the beginning of the scene in which he describes at length his usurpation to Miranda. Ariel makes no attempt to stop Prospero from relating this story and soon enough is willing to act his part as foil and provide the answers to Prospero's rhetorical questions so that the ordeal may be ended. It appears that Prospero finds the same delight in telling stories as he does in performing his magic, and thus uses every occasion to indulge his own whims and entertain others. When the present lecture comes to its conclusion, Ariel is assured he will be granted his freedom soon and in turn assures Prospero that he will do his “spriting gently.”

Prospero has been confined to his island for twelve years and he takes great delight in the practice of his art. When Ariel returns to tell of his success during the storm it is “To answer [Prospero's] best pleasure,” and his master responds with delight at his telling: “My brave spirit!” (I.ii.206), “Why, that's my spirit!” (1. 215). Prospero finds his greatest delight in bringing together Ferdinand and Miranda. At their first meeting he expresses his joy in an aside to Ariel:

                                                                      It goes on, I see,
As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee
Within two days for this.

(I.ii.422-24)

                                                                      At first sight
They have chang'd eyes. Delicate Ariel,
I'll set thee free for this.

(ll. 443-45)

After Ferdinand has “strangely stood the test,” and agreed to observe all “sanctimonious ceremonies,”⁸ Prospero consents to the marriage which he had hoped to bring about through his art. Of course, his art is limited in this case: he can only bring the two together; the love they find for one another must come from their own hearts.

Prospero's delight in dramatic presentation of his art extends to the unveiling of Ferdinand and Miranda. After he tells Alonso that he has suffered a loss as great as the loss of Ferdinand he invites the party to his “cell” and tells them:

My dukedom since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye
As much as me my dukedom.

(V.i.168-71)

Since they all think that Ferdinand is dead and since Miranda is able to evoke such wonder, Prospero enjoys his most theatrical moment.

In order to celebrate the imminent marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda, Prospero promises to “Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple / Some vanity of mine Art” (IV.i.40-41), and he asks Ariel to bring in the lesser spirits to perform his bidding. During the wedding masque Prospero suddenly becomes disturbed and the creatures who perform the masque vanish amidst “a strange, hollow, and confused noise” (S.D., l. 138). Evidently Prospero has remembered Caliban's ingratitude which has in turn reminded him of Antonio's.⁹ Both Miranda and Ferdinand are shocked by his sudden anger and he quickly recovers himself: “You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort, / As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful sir” (ll. 146-47). Up until this time the visions which Prospero has presented have all been fully realized, they have all been resolved to the satisfaction of his audience. When Ferdinand sees this momentary loss of control he is naturally shocked—we are too. Prospero's answer to Ferdinand's anxiety is a profound view into the limitations of his art and of the world:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(ll. 148-58)

The delight he usually feels in his art is disrupted by thoughts of the mutability, not only of his device, but of all material things. For a moment the realization that all is not within his power stuns both himself and the audience. It is a melancholy moment, one in which neither Ferdinand nor Miranda can share, but one which stands in stark contrast to our former conviction that Prospero is in control. We suddenly feel that the wonder that Prospero so ably produces is finite. He apologizes to the couple and the moment passes as he prepares for his encounter with Caliban and company.

The melancholy we feel at the end of the masque scene is the result of a complex of emotions. David Grene has written that at the end of the play we have a sense that Prospero's “drive and vitality, which enabled him to plan and carry out the defeat of his foes and the requisite new start for the future, expired with that moment in the play when these results were formerly achieved.” He continues:

What is left is the weariness of an old man who has no longer any passionate concern. … The doubleness of life in beauty and ugliness, the imperfection of consummation, the frality of humanity, the terror of death's meaninglessness, are too much for him—as a person. And we have really only entered into this story through his person … as he grows weary and ready for death, we enter into his mood.¹⁰

Grene's insight is persuasive, but I feel there is a further explanation. Prospero functions as the visions and oracles of the preceding romances, and The Tempest itself is, in a sense, a vision for the audience as well as for some of the characters in the play.¹¹ When Alonso calls for an oracle it is Prospero who answers, “I'll resolve you.” We find in The Tempest that there are two ways of gaining knowledge. Like Marina in Pericles and Hermione in The Winter's Tale Miranda, through her virtue, is in harmony with her universe, and like Perdita she lacks worldly wisdom. Polixenes posed a genuine threat to Perdita and that threat is averted only by the manipulations of the worldly Camillo. When Miranda expresses her wonder at the “beauteous” characters in the “new world” she encounters, Prospero gently corrects her—though she may not hear him—“'Tis new to thee” (V.i.184). His comment follows logically from his own experience with Alonso, Antonio, and with Caliban, and we see that the knowledge which comes through virtue, though necessary to man must be complemented by a more mundane knowledge. By the time the action of the play begins he has attained a certain harmony with the universe. He has reached the point at which his knowledge enables him to control his island world. Furthermore, he has now found it necessary to submit his passion to “nobler reason,” which tells him that mercy is a better course than revenge, even in a context in which actions, like “solemn temples,” ultimately lose their significance.

V

Because Prospero has gained the knowledge necessary to control his world, he has been able to sustain an atmosphere of wonder for the characters who move within it. Even Caliban experiences it:

                                                                      the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd,
I cried to dream again.

(III.ii.133-41)

Though we have not experienced the wonder of the characters subject to Prospero's control, we have shared Prospero's delight in watching the success of his plans. Yet, at the end of the play, we begin to experience a sense of wonder which is not found in the other romances. It is not a shocked extreme of passion beyond grief or joy; rather it is a sense that there is something beyond all knowledge, a sense that when “all” knowledge has apparently been gained, as with Prospero's ability to control people and the elements, there still is some quality we are unable to comprehend.

This wonder is developed in the final act of the play. By the end of Act IV Prospero is able to say “At this hour / Lies at my mercy all mine enemies” (IV.i.262-63) and to assure Ariel of his freedom. Act V begins as Prospero reasserts his success:

Now does my project gather to a head:
My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time
Goes upright with his carriage.

(V.i.1-3)

Prospero must now decide what is to be done. He may either seek his revenge or grant forgiveness, and he tells Ariel that,

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.

(ll. 25-32)

He sends Ariel to release Alonso and the others and realizes once again that he must now relinquish his powers so that he may return to his political responsibilities. In his final moments as a mage he recalls the nature and extent of the powers he shall now have to part with:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid—
Weak masters though ye be—I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth
By my so potent Art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly music,—which even I do now,—
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

(ll. 33-57)

At the moment when his power has reached its height, when all his enemies lie within it, he must lay down his staff and book. The force of the “revels” speech plays upon our awareness here and we see that Prospero is also subject to the more powerful forces of mutability. As the other characters derive their wonder from his Art, our wonder derives from possibilities which arise when the art is put aside because it must be put aside.

As the “charm dissolves apace” and Alonso, Gonzalo, Antonio, and Sebastian begin to come to their senses, Prospero's power must also dissolve. As Ariel helps to dress Prospero in his ducal robes, he becomes joyful knowing that now he will be set free. Since he is not human he can feel no compassion for his master: when Prospero tells Ariel that he shall miss him, Ariel does not respond; rather he sets about concluding his work.

In the last scene, then, our perspective has changed. We watch the wonder of the characters as Prospero discovers himself and Ferdinand and Miranda; the effects of his art are still apparent but his delight is colored by the knowledge that his power is coming to an end. Hence, the ambiguous force of his statement to Miranda, “'Tis new to thee.” It is both an acknowledgment of her wonder and a mild corrective which she most likely does not hear. Her response of wonder is something entirely outside of any power Prospero has ever had, and he must feel that he will have no power either to perpetuate her sense of wonder at the “brave new world” or even to warn her that it may not be so “brave.” She has heard of his experience but the story seems to have little effect now. In her wonder she includes Sebastian and Antonio, men whom Prospero could only contain for a short time, and as Rose Zimbardo has written, their will, “the refusal to submit to order, is at the center of the evil that cannot be reached by Prospero's art.”¹² Thus the limits of his art become all the more clear. The play concludes as Prospero leads his guests to hear his story, one which, no doubt will produce wonder—a story, as Alonso says, “which must / Take the ear strangely” (ll. 312-13). Finally, he dismisses Ariel: “Be free, and fare thou well!” (l. 318). In the final scene of The Tempest we find that we do not feel the joy one is accustomed to feel at the end of Shakespeare's other comedies and romances. We experience the same melancholy that Prospero feels and it is the result of his developing awareness of the forces outside of his control. Finally we are left, like Prospero, to wonder at the essential mystery which remains outside of any “Art” and beyond the capabilities of almost any artist.

By setting up a fantasy world in The Tempest Shakespeare provides us with a unique perspective from which to view the central “unsolvable” problems which exist outside of the controlled world of imitation. The fantasy world of the play is carefully defined so that the marvelous events which occur in that world are verisimilar within their own context; the possibilities for action are increased because verisimilitude is not limited by what is “real” in the primary world. Ultimately, however, fantasy, like the way in which we perceive the primary world, depends on a series of logical propositions and thus describes metaphorically “the way things are.” In a most profound way Shakespeare's fantasy provides an indirect commentary on the primary world; by setting strict limits on the secondary world we are able to see how little we know once we perceive those limits. Like Prospero, who seemed to know all, we are left with a strong impression that the ability to perceive the limits of our own world only exposes us to the mystery which lies outside of that world.

Notes

1. Helen Gardner, “As You Like It,” in More Talking of Shakespeare, ed. John Garrett (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1959), rpt. in Shakespeare: The Comedies, ed. Kenneth Muir (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1965), p. 62.

2. See my forthcoming article in Shakespeare Quarterly, “Fantasy and Wonder in Shakespeare's Last Plays,” and Joan Hartwig, “The Tragicomic Perspective of The Winter's Tale,” ELH, 37 (1970), 12-36, esp. 31-33.

3. It is interesting to note two of the many ways in which the Cinquecento critics deal with the problem of “realistic” or credible elements and the fantastic elements necessary to poetry. Robertello, for example, would have the poet keep the main action of a work “pure,” that is, free from any fantastic events. Yet he realized the need for the marvelous and felt the best way to accommodate that need was to relegate the fantastic events to the subplot (cf. Francisci Robertelli Vtinensis in librum Aristotelis De Arte Poetica Explicationes [Florence, 1548], esp. the Prologue). Giraldi, though he would agree with Robertello in restricting the marvelous to the minor episodes, argues that when the marvelous is based upon poetic tradition it may be admitted into the major plot and thus, he indirectly broadens the criteria for credible material and, in fact, justifies the practice of placing fantastic events within the main action of a work (cf. Giovambattista Giraldi Cinthio, Discorsidi … intorno al compore de i Romanzi, delle Comedie, e delle Tragedie, e di altre di poesie [Ferrara, 1554], esp. pp. 54-56).

4. J. V. Cunningham presents some interesting ideas on the importance of wonder in Shakespeare's tragedies in his study Woe or Wonder: The Emotional Effect of Shakespearean Tragedy (Denver: Alan Swallow, 1951).

5. All line references are based upon the “New” Arden editions of Shakespeare's plays.

6. The Boatswain's speech to Gonzalo emphasizes the apparent impossibility in the fictional world of The Tempest to control the storm:

   You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the presence, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. … Out of our way, I say.

   (I.i.20-27)

7. See Clifford Leech, Shakespeare's Tragedies and Other Studies in Seventeenth Century Drama (London: Chatto and Windus, 1950), p. 144, for an opposing view.

8. Leech sees Prospero's insistence on chastity as an example of Prospero's “pathological” puritanism (pp. 137-58, esp. 151-53). But Prospero, along with his love for making art, i. e., for imposing order and form upon experience, seems to have a great love for ceremony. He has waited many years to say “The hour's now come” and to relate his history to Miranda. When confronting Ferdinand, Prospero says in an aside that he could control, i. e., contradict, Ferdinand's incorrect conclusions about his situation, “If now 'twere fit to do't” (I.ii.443), but he must wait for the proper time. And in the last act Prospero, having regained his dukedom explains that now is the time to present Ferdinand and Miranda. He even restrains himself from the pleasure of relating his tales of his life on the island until a more decorous moment:

   No more yet of this;
   For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
   Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
   Befitting this first meeting.

   (V.i.162-65)

9. I follow Kermode's explanation in his notes to the Arden edition.

10. Both quotations are from Reality and The Heroic Pattern: Last Plays of Ibsen, Shakespeare, and Sophocles (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 100.

11. See D. G. James, The Dream of Prospero (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), who sees the entire play as a dream, and with whom, on this point, I disagree.

12. “Form and Disorder in The Tempest,” SQ, [Shakespeare Quarterly], 14 (1963), 55.